Technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Community
The Commission presents a report on the application by the Member States of Directive 2000/30/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the community.
Under Directive 2000/30/EC, commercial vehicles and their trailers and semi-trailers circulating on the territories of the Member States are subject to technical roadside inspections of their roadworthiness, in order to improve road safety and protect the environment.
This is the fourth report on how Directive 2000/30/EC is applied in Member States; it covers the period 2011-12.
Data communicated by the Member States: the Commission states that compliance with reporting obligations has improved, although reports from Member States still lack some key statistical data, notably on vehicle categories, inspection points, origin of vehicles checked and number of prohibitions imposed.
Member States did not always meet the deadline set in legislation for providing data. In some cases, these were only provided when the Commission had launched bilateral inquiries with the relevant Member State authorities. Some Member States continue not to use the standardised electronic format that the Commission has recommended for submitting data. The Commission continues to recommend that the standardised electronic format be used, as this will support the submission of more complete data.
The main conclusions of the report are:
Percentage of vehicles inspected: the total number of vehicles checked was 8 145984 vehicles for 2011-12, which corresponds to 46.12% of the overall fleet being subject to roadside checks each year, ranging from less than 1% in Portugal to more than 100% in Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria.
The future EU target of 5% — stipulated in the new roadside inspection Directive 2014/47/EU — should therefore be easily reachable for all Member States. However, 11 Member States remain substantially below the EU target and should therefore increase their technical roadside inspection activity.
Total number of vehicles checked: the proportion of domestic vehicles out of the total number of vehicles checked also varies substantially. In Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria, where the proportion of checks on domestic vehicles is below 50 %, efforts should be made to ensure a more balanced rate of checks, more in line with those in other Member States with significant transit traffic.
Prohibited vehicles: the proportion of vehicles prohibited in relation to all vehicles checked varies considerably from one Member State to another, from a high of 87.6% in Estonia to just 0.6% in Poland. The figures seem to indicate that targeting technical roadside inspections on poorly maintained vehicles, as currently done in Luxembourg, Austria and the United Kingdom.
The administrative burden for both enforcement authorities and transport operators could also be reduced through better targeting.
The new roadside inspection Directive 2014/47/EU requires Member States to change their inspection systems, moving from carrying out purely random checking to a more targeted approach.
Types of deficiencies detected: the most frequent deficiencies detected during inspections concern the roadworthiness condition of:
- lighting equipment and electric system (47.0%);
- axles, wheels, tyres, suspension (24.6%); and
- chassis and chassis attachments (11.8%).
There has been a decrease of three percentage points (from 4.1 % to 1.0 %) in the ratio of spillage of fuel and/or oil since the previous reporting period.
Even within the different items to be tested — such as braking equipment for example — considerable differences in deficiency rates were reported, ranging from 1.9% in Estonia to 47.3% in the United Kingdom.
The European Commission encourages Member States to pay particular attention to the categories of deficiencies that continue to be most problematic and to adjust the inspection methods they use accordingly.